Where is the outrage over these numbers?

[Hybrid Vigor]

If a white company owner wanted to only hire white employees, or to give preferences to whites, you would scream racism, and say that he shouldn't have the right to run his private company as he wants to.

And I'm sure, in your fiction, that this happens a lot less than URMs falsely skipping law school admissions barriers? Who's kidding who? AA is a drop in the bucket of massive, large-scale, institutionalized and often invisible racism of precisely the type you describe.

It absolutely does.  If anything, URM's get preferential treatment from employers, as they don't want to offend the NAACP and Sharpton with his lunatic crew. 

No, really, what universe do you live in?

And I don't think schools care about who will "do best" in law school. They care about who can graduate and then go on to best represent the school and be successful. For instance - I think Harvard does an outstanding job of selecting for leadership. As an institution, Harvard produces a lot of people who have an impact on society. To do involves choosing people who have DONE something with their lives aside from pick the correct answers on a supposedly standardized test.

[Hybrid Vigor]

The universe where managers have told me that they won't fire bad URM employees because they will go running to the EEOC. 

Does it occur to you that the manager could have been plain lying? Maybe the manager said that because he knew that the employees in question would have a valid claim (ie, bad White employees don't get fired). If they have real grounds to fire someone, they will. Unless we're talking about the government.

[Hybrid Vigor]

The universe where managers have told me that they won't fire bad URM employees because they will go running to the EEOC. 

Does it occur to you that the manager could have been plain lying? Maybe the manager said that because he knew that the employees in question would have a valid claim (ie, bad White employees don't get fired). If they have real grounds to fire someone, they will. Unless we're talking about the government.

BS on that one.  With nonsensical "disparate impact" doctrines and other such absurdity, bad employees often cannot be fired.

That is NOT true. I work in a firm that defends Fortune 500s against discrimination lawsuits. Vast majority of claims filed with the EEOC get NOWHERE. So long as the employer documents bad work performance, they are almost untouchable.

[Alamo]

No response for me, Googler?

Your question is a tough one, and exposes a bit of a paradox in the idea that performance in law school is the only thing that validates admissions.  We all know that only half of the students can be in the top 50% of the class.  Adcomms realize this, I would imagine, so they don't want their classes to be 100% overachievers who are going to kill themselves if they're not at the top of their class.  Grades are only one (albeit the most important to many people) component of law school performance.

And I'd not worry about ganging up on him; my impression is that he enjoys it, and uses boards like this to hone his arguments.  Lord only knows to what end.

[Hybrid Vigor]

Here's a fresh thought:

you're a white guy with good numbers, going to a top five law school. Would it really hurt you, at this very late stage in the game, to step back and cut others some slack? So WHAT if a URM beat you out at Harvard. You, pal, are sitting in the top fraction of a percentile in this country, and doing even better worldwide.

What exactly are you fighting against? It doesn't get much better than how you have it.

Look, as I said, this debate has nothing to do with me.  I don't feel as though I was entitled to get into any school that I didn't (with the exception of Penn).  My numbers weren't good enough for them.  However, I don't see why I should cut people slack who didn't work for what they ended up getting. 

  Didn't work for? So you think that URMs stroll into HLS off of a street corner somewhere? They didn't work for it? If it were that easy, every URM who graduates from college would be at Harvard, Yale, or Stanford Law.


Look, I think your arguments are much better served by saying - I don't think diversity should be a concern in admissions decisions. There will be people who are argue you on that, but I think that's a much more defendable position than the ones you tend to take (like URMs don't work hard and aren't qualified)

[Hybrid Vigor]

The universe where managers have told me that they won't fire bad URM employees because they will go running to the EEOC. 

Does it occur to you that the manager could have been plain lying? Maybe the manager said that because he knew that the employees in question would have a valid claim (ie, bad White employees don't get fired). If they have real grounds to fire someone, they will. Unless we're talking about the government.

BS on that one.  With nonsensical "disparate impact" doctrines and other such absurdity, bad employees often cannot be fired.

That is NOT true. I work in a firm that defends Fortune 500s against discrimination lawsuits. Vast majority of claims filed with the EEOC get NOWHERE. So long as the employer documents bad work performance, they are almost untouchable.

I agree with you.  But FIGHTING these claims is still expensive, and managers often choose to keep bad employees just to avoid the headache. 

Fighting them is expensive. I won't deny that. As to your second point, I think I'd need more than your one anecdote to believe that. I think its easier to believe that medicore performers are often not fired b/c the company can't find airtight grounds for dismissal.

[Hybrid Vigor]

I do think that diversity should be a concern, but only to the extent that preferences aren't used to achieve said diversity. 

Sooo...how does the diversity happen? Are you saying you're okay seeing two equally qualified (numerically speaking) candidates being decided between on the basis of race?

[Hybrid Vigor]

I do think that diversity should be a concern, but only to the extent that preferences aren't used to achieve said diversity. 

Sooo...how does the diversity happen? Are you saying you're okay seeing two equally qualified (numerically speaking) candidates being decided between on the basis of race?

If there truly were two equally qualified candidates, yes.  But there's no such thing as equal qualification.  Anyway, the diversity could be achieved by addressing the CAUSE for the grade/test score disparities. 

Hint: It's not funding.

I would say that a 3.3 gpa from MIT with 174 LSAT is equally qualified to a 3.5 GPA in English from Harvard College with a 173 LSAT.


What's the cause of grade/test score disparities?

[redemption]

Haha. I love it.

[Hybrid Vigor]

Face it, pal. Your GPA is sh*t. You probably pulled off some Chiashu miracles there. Normally, I'd be glad for you. It's nice when things go your way. But then, you're the one preaching about Hobbesian work ethics and innate merit, saying that people should be assessed purely on numbers. Well, I bet there are plenty of folks with higher GPAs -- yes, from similar programs to yours -- who weren't so fortunate this cycle. So, put your money where your mouth is, and give up your spot to one. It's for the greater good, pal. We don't want CLS graduating slackers like you, especially not when people who can manage 4.0s with their eyes closed are shut out every cycle.

It's well established that LSAT is a far greater indicator of law school performance than GPA.  Deal with it. 

Besides, I don't need to engage you on this. If GPA didn't matter, schools wouldn't look at it. They sure as hell wouldn't blend the two into an INDEX. Sorry, buster. Your numbers suck. You scooped some poor, high-achieving person out of a CLS spot, and they're now rotting in waitlist hell. You don't deserve the spot you got, by your own metrics. Vacate it.

Two things: A) Since USNEWS requires it, schools are forced to look at it, even if it is meaningless.
B) Secondly, GPA is more of an indicator of UG effort than anything else.  Not innate intelligence, and certainly not the ability to do well in law school. 

But I thought working hard was important too.

Do you really think the LSAT measures intelligence? If so, do you think that groups who score lower are just innately less intelligent than groups that do?